#9 Finding Feeds

This week I checked out the sites recommended in the 23 Things. My use of the internet is usually in relation to something specific I want to find at that time, for example what's on at the movies, if a new book is out, are there any new theatre shows worth getting tickets for and if I can't wait until the next episode of something on TV I'll see if it's already been aired in America and find out what happens. Because I'm not used to tracking these things it was good to use the 'feed finders' for suggestions.

Feedster, Topix, Syndic8 and Technorati are all easy to use. Of the four sites I liked Feedster and Technorati best. I found them easier to use and I liked a lot of the suggested feeds. As it says on the Technorati site -

I still prefer the search feature on Bloglines though. Seeing as I had a session open it was easier to use that for searching and adding feeds. I was also able to load interesting clips to my public blog quickly too.

I can see that it would be useful for Libraries to be able to offer their users regular updates via feeds - when the Library website is updated, or new events being held at the Library are advertised. I can also see an application for some Libraries using feeds on their sites or the homepage on the computers in the Library. Users could always see the latest news and weather for their city or any other feeds of interest to groups of people.

The time consuming part for me is having to login to Bloglines and check for new feeds. The RSS feeds on IE 7 look as though it will be easier to view feeds, and of course having access to a reader from the desktop at work would be great!

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